Is it safe to say that, out of all the years the Houston Cinema Arts Festival has been up and running, this year’s fest is – the most Houston ever?

Courtesy of Houston Cinema Arts Festival

Mahershala Ali's Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is set in Houston.

The 18th-annual film festival — running from this Thursday, October 1, until Sunday, October 11 — will showcase several Houston-centric films and filmmakers in their “Spotlight on Texas” and “Texas Icons” programs. Pakistani-born, Clutch City-bred filmmaker Bassam Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) directed the opening-night film, the Mahershala Ali action drama Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, which is also set in Houston.

Vicky Wight, another H-Town filmmaker, will screen two films: the narrative drama The Body Is Water and Zina, a documentary short on Houston tennis great Zina Garrison. DJ Screw, Brittney Griner, the Fourth Ward, and the Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” match that went down at the Astrodome will also get screen time this year. And don’t forget about the 30th anniversary screening of Bottle Rocket, written and directed by hometown hero Wes Anderson.

“Houston was such a major source of inspiration for the festival,” says lead HCAF programmer Michael D. Robinson. “We have that idea of reflecting Houston back to itself, but also, for me, it was reflecting Houston to the world and the world back to Houston.”

Now in its eighth year, the HCAF (created and programmed by the Houston Cinema Arts Society) continues to look for cinematic art both regionally and internationally. The fest will screen the latest from acclaimed international filmmakers, including Possible Love, from South Korean dramatist Lee Chang-dong (Burning); and Fatherland, from Oscar-nominated Pole Paweł Pawlikowski (Cold War). A wide array of features and shorts will also be shown, ranging from films directed by female filmmakers to films centered on African American and LGBTQ+ themes.

“My Eyes Are Playing Tricks on Me” is a themed program dealing with the complicated relationship between image and truth, particularly in this increasingly-troublesome age of AI. Robinson gives props to HCAS for giving him more room to expand the lineup.

“There are 10 more features than last year, and I'm very happy that they let me do that,” he says. “But I definitely was more ambitious and, just looking at this year in film, there are so many great options. And it kind of became a moment of being like, if we can, let's just try to give audiences as many of these great films from international festivals — but also from [South by Southwest].”

The 11-day fest will be a sprawling affair, with screenings happening at various venues (including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Rice Cinema, River Oaks Theatre, and the DeLUXE Theater) along with parties, panels, and other events going on in other spots. Just as the festival wants to salute Houston on-screen, the organizers also want Houstonians to experience the spaces where you can see these films.

“Houston is not like [former Sundance Film Festival home] Park City, Utah, where everything is a mile away from each other, and you have 100 different theaters that you can walk to,” says HCAS executive director Katie Creeggan-Rios. “We are a big, sprawling, metropolitan area with a lot of different neighborhoods and a lot of our cultural identities. And it's been important to Michael and me from the beginning to make sure that we are programming site-specific, that we're thinking about what is important to an audience at the DeLUXE Theater, and what kind of movies feel at home at the River Oaks. And it's one of the things that makes our audience so special, and makes our festival so exciting.”

For more information on the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, go to the festival website.